Believing the Lie - Elizabeth George [74]
“Don’t be so certain of that.”
“What? Are you claiming now that Tim… My God. You get worse and worse.”
There was, Manette knew, no further point in their conversation. Coffee be damned, she began to head towards the front door and she was nearly there when footsteps came up the two exterior steps and someone called out, “Nee? Pet? Where’s my girl?”
A man stood at the door, a pot of chrysanthemums in his hands and on his face a look of such eagerness that Manette knew she was looking at the sender of the Bucket of Love. He was there to play with its contents, she reckoned. A slight sheen of anticipation glistened on his pudgy face.
He said, “Oh!” and looked over his shoulder as if thinking he’d come to the wrong house.
Then over Manette’s shoulder, Niamh said, “Come in, Charlie. Manette is just leaving.”
Charlie. He looked vaguely familiar. Manette couldn’t place him, however, till he nodded at her nervously and passed her in the doorway. His proximity brought his scent quite close, and the scent was cooking oils and something else. At first Manette thought of fish and chips, but then she realised he was the owner of one of the three Chinese takeaways in the market square in Milnthorpe. She’d been in there more than once on her way home from Arnside and Nicholas’s house, scoring a meal for Freddie. She’d never seen this man out of his kitchen uniform spattered with grease and copious amounts of soy sauce. But here he was, eager to do a job that didn’t at all involve slopping chop suey into takeaway cartons.
As he entered the house, he said, “You look good enough to eat,” to Niamh.
She giggled. “Hope so. Have you brought your appetite?”
Both of them laughed. The door closed on them, allowing them to get down to business.
Manette felt white heat wash over her. Something, she decided, would have to be done about her cousin Ian’s wife. She was wise enough to understand, however, that it might well be a leave-her-to-God situation completely beyond her powers to effect. But what she could effect was a change in Tim and Gracie’s lives. And that was something she could see to herself.
WINDERMERE
CUMBRIA
Getting possession of the forensic reports had not been a difficult matter, and this ease of acquisition had been largely due to St. James’s reputation as an expert witness. There was, of course, no actual need for his expertise in this matter because the ruling had already been made by the coroner, but a phone call and a spurious tale about a university presentation on basic forensics had been enough to put all the relevant documents into his hands. These confirmed what Lynley had told him about the death of Ian Cresswell, with a few additional salient details. The man had suffered a severe blow to the head— in the near region of the left temple— which had been enough to render him unconscious and fracture his skull. The apparent source of the blow was the stone dock and although his body had been in the water for approximately nineteen hours when it had been found, it had— at least according to the forensic report— still been possible to make a comparison between the wound on his head and the shape of the stone that he had ostensibly hit on the dock before tumbling into the water.
St. James frowned. He wondered how this was possible. Nineteen hours in the water would do much to alter the inflicted wound, making information about it useless unless some sort of reconstruction had been managed. He looked for this, but he didn’t see one. He made a note and continued reading.
Death had been by drowning as an examination of the lungs had confirmed. Bruising on the right leg suggested that Cresswell’s foot may have become caught in the scull’s stretcher as he lost his balance, capsizing the craft and holding the victim beneath the water for a time until— perhaps due to the gentle